


The Princess and the Seer

by Kittywitch



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: General fiction, Literature, Other, fan fiction, pair the spares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:31:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unable to sleep, Raw seeks out someone upset who he can sense but not quite hear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and the Seer

The night wasn't still. It was quiet, but it wasn't still.  
A hush had fallen over the palace as the various occupants fell asleep. Even the spastic inventor had retired to his own quarters hours ago. Or to Cain's. Raw didn't know which and he didn't much care.

Most of the viewers had been offered separate quarters while they recuperated, but for the most part they either ran into the wilderness without looking back, or grouped together in the same sets that they had been trapped with in cages. Part of that seemed very odd, to willfully put yourself in a circumstance so much like one you had just escaped. This one did have the benefit of being in rooms with windows, air flow, bedding, and doors that opened from the inside. They even provided food. Not only was there more than enough to keep them alive, it was recognisable as the substance it was before it was food. That was rare enough during the witch's reign, even if you weren't being held as a prisoner.

Lilo's injuries were the worst out of the three that shared the suite. All of the lion-men slept more than other bipedal sentients, but he'd been sleeping alot even for his kind. Abandoning the provided beds, the viewers had stripped the bedding and made a sort of nest in a corner of the main room. There, all three of them had settled down for a long but uneasy sleep. Kalm, the cub, had fallen to sleep only recently, and even now twitched from time to time. The only one left awake was Raw. He couldn't sleep. Not through what was happening. He held the cub's hand comfortingly, but he wasn't really sure whether it was for Kalm's sake or his own. Perhaps it was keeping the child soothed, and that's why he didn't wake. But then, Lilo was also asleep. Raw wondered to himself if it was the exhaustion of the torture they'd been put through, or numbness to the pain that had surrounded them every day for the past several years. For Kalm, it was all of his life.

Raw still could feel the pain. It wasn't his own, and he wasn't entirely sure whose it was. It was like hearing someone crying, except for the hearing part. Which was the part you could block out if you wanted to try and sleep through it. It was a miserable thought, to block out someone else's pain so you could rest, but sometimes it was the only answer available. 

But it wasn't the only answer available tonight.

Raw carefully slipped his hand out of Kalm's and pulled himself over Lilo and out of the huddle. He crouched for a moment, looking back at his companions and watching them breathe. He hadn't woken them by getting up. Good. If they could sleep through what he was feeling, then they needed to. 

 

The viewer padded out of his room, trying not to breathe or step heavily or flux in his emotions. He was feeling something very strange. In most circumstances, he would have needed direct contact with who he was reading to feel their emotions this strongly. More bizarrely, he didn't recognize who he was feeling. He hadn't read each and every person who was currently in the castle, but it surge of emotion felt like something he would have recognized if he ever felt it before. If he'd felt any emotion from it's source before. If Raw had been familiar with the other side expression "curiosity killed the cat", the feline man might have stayed in his bed and attempted to sleep through the disturbance. As he hadn't, he pressed on, walking through silent, dark, and empty hallways with his eyes half-closed.

The emotion get stronger and clearer as he moved on. Either he was getting closer to it's source or it was growing in pitch. The boarding rooms of the injured passed behind him and he tried to remember where the staircase he was climbing led to. He wasn't up this way much, because... he tried to remember why he'd never been in this part of the palace. The impression of the companions he'd travelled with passed through him briefly, but it faded as he pressed on, following the pain. He passed a long stretch of hallway without doors, and then a single door, large, ornate, with a bolt that had been left open. Now he remembered. The personal quarters of the royal family were up this way. That's why he had gotten the impression of Glitch and Cain. They were probably asleep or had left a strong enough impression on their rooms for him to pick up on as he passed.

It felt strange to be moving towards this horrible emotion, but if he didn't find what was making it, it might never stop. He might lose more than one's night sleep feeling this stranger and their misery. AS he moved forward, it got thicker and soupy. He was getting close to the source.  
The doors were so far apart that it was apparent from several yards away which one held the feeling. It didn't appear any different than the rest of them, just another break in the yards of art nouveau stained glass. Raw drew closer and entered as if he were dreaming. He followed the emotion through the door like he'd followed it up the stairs, unblinking, thoughtless, as if in a dream.

 

The first room in the suite was fairly large, with a door of opaque glass at either side and tall windows on the back wall. The furniture was largely made of pale wicker, woven to a decorative extreme, the design of which continued onto tatted cushions. A sketch pad and oil pastels were left on one of the seats, another one had an embroidery project folded neatly on it's arm. A crystal ball shared an end table with an oil lamp and a basket of flowers. A collection of china dolls, the largest no taller than two hands put together rested on shelves near the windows.  
This was clearly a woman's room. Given that the royal family had three female members, that didn't do much to narrow it down. Raw turned his head towards the feeling and followed it to the right-hand door.  
It wasn't until his hand was over the handle that it finally occurred to Raw that he was in someone's private room. All of the apprehension he should have felt while coming here hit him at once, and it was like terror. He froze in place, shocked by his boldness and audacity. He wanted to run out of the room as fast as he could manage, but then the person on the other side of the door would hear him and he would be found out. How could he be so stupid? What was he doing there?

A new wave of misery broke over him as the first noise he'd heard all night broke the silence. It was a soft, painful little sigh; the kind of noise someone makes when they're trying not to make any noise at all. It startled him even more than the feeling. He knew that voice. But he had never heard it make a noise anything like that.

Raw felt as if he were being moved rather than moving himself. The same force that had brought him to the door made him touch it. He spread his palm across the glass for a moment.  
He really wanted all of this feeling, all of this pain to stop, but it was more than wanting to sleep uninterrupted. He felt so much pity he thought he might be sick.  
He knocked.

The silence returned. More than returned. Now even the pain was startled into being more than just a deep withering hole that sucked the viewer in. It had stopped too. Now there was absolutely nothing in the night, just the fading echos of shock. The shock was so much quieter than the misery.

"Deegee?" asked Azkadellia from behind the door. Her voice was wet and strangled. All of that pain had come from her. He felt that he should have figured that out, just by process of elimination, but somehow the idea of Azkadellia crying was so foreign he'd eliminated her as a possibility in his mind without even realizing that he had.  
The viewer paused, unsure how to continue. The people on either side of the door spent an uncomfortable moment that just stretched on and on as Raw tried to figure out how he could possibly explain what was going on. He gave up and opened the door.  
The soft, muted feeling of shock increased when he entered, but didn't grow any louder.

Azkadellia stared at the viewer. Raw was, possibly literally, the last person she would have expected to come through that door in the middle of the night. He tilted his head in embarrassment, then remembered to bow properly. She was a princess, after all.  
"Hello, Raw." she said quietly, very confused.  
"Princess." he said at length. "Raw sorry... princess sad... Raw feel..." he attempted to explain. It sounded so pathetic now that he was actually saying it aloud.  
"I'm sorry." said Azkadellia, rubbing at her eyes. I didn't think anyone could hear me."  
She gave another little gasp, pushing her hair out of her face. She shook her head and made a noise that sounded alot like a chuckle except for the tears.  
"I thought everyone was asleep..." she murmured. "I'm sorry, I woke you up, didn't I? I was trying to be quiet..." Her voice was like a child's. She was apologizing for feeling sad. Of all the things to be sorry for.  
"Raw not hear Azkadellia." said Raw. "Felt someone sad. So much sadness. So much pain. Raw can not sleep. Raw can not know how anyone sleep. So much pain. So much sadness."

He looked at her with the same knowing eyes animals have. Her lip trembled and she attempted not to cry again. It was the most peculiar, disconnected feeling; looking at a face, into eyes you recognized, and feel a stranger behind them. To have a frightened little girl wear your enemy's face like a mask.

"I'm sorry?" she said again, this time unsure of what she was apologizing for. It could have been waking him up, it could have been drilling a hole in his head, it could have been herding his people like sheep and forcing them to do her bidding. It could be all of that.  
"Don't be scared, Azkadellia." said Raw quite suddenly. "War done. Safe."  
"Scared?" she gave that weak, barely audible laugh again. "Who said I was scared?"  
Raw gestured vaguely towards himself.  
"Viewer." he answered.  
"Oh." she replied, turning away. It was somewhat surreal to see the princess with her hair completely undone and no form of construction sprouting from her neck and shoulders. The nightgown made her look very small in comparison.  
"I didn't know that your empathy could pick up on someone who you weren't looking for." said Azkadellia softly. "I've seen viewers find men from across the zone, but..."  
"Like screaming." said Raw. "Or crying. I feel."  
"I'm so sorry." said Azkadellia again, turning towards her window.  
"Don't."  
"Don't?"  
"Don't be sorry. Don't be sad." said the viewer. "Over."  
"No. It's not over, it's just done. All the damage is done... and I caused it."  
"Witch."  
"It's my fault because I was too weak to fight back."  
"Child." he reassured her. She glanced over her shoulder.  
"...how are we even having this conversation?" she whispered more to herself, or rather, to her window. Raw considered this, then shrugged.  
"...empath?" he guessed.

She sniffed, then shook her head and turned away.  
"You should be the last person to give me sympathy." said the princess. "After what I did to you..."  
"No." corrected Raw. "Not Azkadellia. Witch." She took a long breath, as if inhaling could draw the tears that were welling but refusing to fall back into her eyes.  
"Does that really matter, Raw?" she asked. "The damage was still done. She's hurt so many people, and I don't know if I can ever fix any of it."  
He paused for a moment, then answered, "Yes." The princess turned back towards him, trying to figure out what part he was responding to.  
"How does it matter?" inquired Azkadellia. "As far as most people are concerned, I am the witch. It would have been better if... if I went away with her."  
"How?" asked Raw, cocking his head.  
"If I'd died?"  
"Raw know. How better?" There was something exasperated in his voice. She couldn't answer that, and so she backpedaled.

"Maybe I did nothing to you. But I did nothing to stop it. The seers must hate me for what the witch used me to do. So few people can even tell the difference between us."  
"Raw can." said Raw. "Raw can feel Azkadellia. Azkadellia sad. Azkadellia scared. Azkadellia not witch. Azkadellia not hurt Raw." He took a step closer and looked directly at the young woman.  
"All viewers feel feel witch know witch. All viewers feel Azkadellia know Azkadellia. Azkadellia not witch." The princess took a long, steadying breath.  
"I haven't been me in a long time, Raw." the princess said softly. "I'm not sure who 'Princess Azkadellia' is, or if she's any better than the witch." There was a short pause in which neither of them spoke. Raw looked at her curiously.  
"Want to know?" he asked.  
"What?"  
"Who Azkadellia is." He raised his hand towards her. She stared out the outstretched hand, looking somewhat terrified of the prospect. The princess bit her lip and nodded.  
"Do it." she said quickly. "Please."

The lion-man's fingers slipped under her hair and rooted themselves beside her face. Azkadellia's head rolled back on her neck, her eyes opening to their fullest extent and then closing again. There was someone in her head with her. Someone seeing everything there was to see. Someone she had let in. It wasn't quite a feeling of violation so much as wondering if permission had been granted in haste.  
The seer's lips began to move as he worked his way through the princess' mind. Words formed, somewhat guttural at first.  
"Scared. Young. Sad. ... Beautiful." His fingers broke away from her scalp. Their eyes opened.  
"Azkadellia not witch." Raw repeated.

Quite suddenly, the viewer found himself with his arms full of princess. It could have been that her sister's tendency to embrace everything and everyone was rubbing off on Azkadellia, it could have been a side effect of him climbing, however briefly, into her mind. It could have simply been that's what princesses did. In any case, Raw did not expect Azkadellia to hug him. He sort of froze in place, wondering what to do about this. Presently, she broke off, rubbing her eyes.  
"Thank you." she muttered hoarsely. "I really needed to hear that, I guess." He nodded.  
"Now sleep." he said. The woman nodded and backed away. His work done, Raw turned to leave. Azkadellia laughed weakly.  
"I guess... if my official viewer report is that 'beautiful' makes the top four of what I am, I guess the whole business with the dresses and the hair really was me."  
The viewer's expression soured and he glanced over his shoulder.  
"Raw's eyes closed. Heart beautiful." The tone in his voice added "duh".  
Raw left Azkadellia's chamber, closed the door on the princesses' suite, exited the hallway and climbed back down the stairs.  He passed his sleeping companions and the royal couple, he descended the stairway and made his way back to his room, back to the bed, back to the wedge of blanket between the other Lilo and Kalm.

And the night, at last, was still.

**Author's Note:**

> "In any case, Raw did not expect Azkadellia to hug him."  
> Neither did the readers nor the author.
> 
> After Az referenced talking to Raw in "Telephone" I found myself wondering what the heck they would be talking about. Then it occurred to me that I'd already referenced Azkadellia being even more remorseful towards the viewers than the rest of the OZ; and that the viewers would, despite being the worst treated by the witch, know the difference between Azkadellia and the witch easier than everyone else.
> 
> And then "pair the spares" happened.  
> This whole scene made much more sense when I first thought of it, but I think that might have been a product of it being past two.


End file.
